Journal

I've been listening to Strahan's Commoner's Communion podcasts. He talks about poetry, and God's character being so much like it, and how we are His "poema", "created in Him to do great works" through Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:10)

I've been experiencing this clarity lately. Not that I have any idea what God's doing, or really whether I'm on the right track. But this I know - He is trustworthy. And I don't have to know what's going on. I may never know. Who am I to know? God is both mystery and truth. We can know Him by knowing His nature. He is God. Everything He is, is far beyond the reaches of my mind. I cannot begin to "quantity" Him or attempt to place purpose on His actions. I. Must. Let. Go. I have absolutely nothing to hang onto but Him.

His majesty is being made known to me, much of it through my own creative perspective and imagery of His created world and people. I cannot explain it. God is poetry - in the sense that everything is made whole and clear and true through Him. Not in black and white, though He is the good and that is clear, and not an any color that we can see. He speaks in other dimensions. Yet He allows us to catch a drop of the vast ocean that is His person - in music, in art, in dance, in the wind, in the trees, in sunsets and sunrises, in natural life, in birth, in marriage, in fellowship, in poetry.

We create and create because we are image-bearers of the ever-creative God. He invented the concept of creation! All things are from Him, from a word.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God on the beginning. All things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created." John 1:1-3

We try to curate the things around us, we rearrange, we search for new ways, innovations, aimlessly pursuing something different, trying to pour out of an empty soul what only God can give birth to. But all things are from Him - including ourselves, mere reflections of God grasping for falsities, hoping they will fill us in a way only He can.

​Strahan points out that one third of the Bible is poetry, or about visions and dreams. Isn't that evidence that this is a significant part of God's character? Look at Psalms and Proverbs, Isaiah and Jeremiah - poetry. Look at Revelation. How did God speak to John? And Paul? And Mary? Through dreams, visions, and messengers. How did Jesus teach His disciples and those following Him? Through stories, imagery, and metaphors.

But there's creativity in all of us, because we are made in God's image. Simply preferring one colored shirt over another is evidence. Or having different tastes in music, or appreciating a mountain view, or using eloquent or "colorful" words. Those are things we all do, because whether we realize it or not, we are are products of an insanely creative God, and we ourselves are His greatest masterpieces, His poetry.